TCB April 26, 2017 — Maintaining a tradition

Greensboro / Winston-Salem / High Point April 26 – May 2, 2017 triad-city-beat.com

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Divided Dems

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Bullied in Winston PAGE 10

Record Store Day PAGE 23

Greensboro stewards of the beautiful game

by Joel Sronce

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April 26 – May 2, 2017

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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

CONTENTS

Alone, on the mountaintop

by Brian Clarey

UP FRONT

3 Editor’s Notebook 4 City Life 5 PLTS: Bragging on the US News & World Report High School Rankings 5 The List: Three takeaways from the David Powell saga

NEWS

6 New court offers alternative to struggling veterans 8 Democrats bitterly divided as party fills vacancy on Guilford commission

17

OPINION

10 Editorial: Winston-Salem gets bullied, backs down 10 Citizen Green:The parenting class 11 Commentariat

COVER

12 Maintaining a tradition

CULTURE

17 Food: Tasty Halal 18 Barstool: Shaina Gold brews a beer 19 Music: Resurrected from the dead, GSO Fest returns

20 Art: NC A&T’s In the Red and Brown Water confronts idea of change

CROSSWORD

21 Jonesin’ Crossword

SHOT IN THE TRIAD

22 Spring Garden Street

TRIADITUDE ADJUSTMENT

23 Next year, I’m camping on the sidewalk

QUOTE OF THE WEEK You play with some people one time, that’s it.

Wherever you see each other, you know: This person plays this game.

— Moussa Issifou in the cover story on page 12

1451 S. Elm-Eugene St. Box 24, Greensboro, NC 27406 • Office: 336-256-9320 BUSINESS PUBLISHER/EXECUTIVE EDITOR Brian Clarey

ART ART DIRECTOR Jorge Maturino

PUBLISHER EMERITUS Allen Broach

SALES DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING Dick Gray

EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Eric Ginsburg

SALES/DIGITAL MARKETING SPECIALIST Regina Curry

eric@triad-city-beat.com

regina@triad-city-beat.com

SENIOR EDITOR Jordan Green

SALES EXECUTIVE Cheryl Green cheryl@triad-city-beat.com

brian@triad-city-beat.com allen@triad-city-beat.com

jordan@triad-city-beat.com

EDITORIAL INTERN Joel Sronce intern@triad-city-beat.com

jorge@triad-city-beat.com

dick@triad-city-beat.com

CONTRIBUTORS Carolyn de Berry Jelisa Castrodale Kat Bodrie Stallone Frazier Spencer KM Brown Matt Jones

Cover photography by Matthew C. Brown David “Lapulga” Amissi breaks toward the goal in a Greensboro United Soccer Association Global team scrimmage.

TCB IN A FLASH DAILY @ triad-city-beat.com First copy is free, all additional copies are $1.00. ©2016 Beat Media Inc.

When I got up this morning and stood on the deck, I saw white clouds settled in the green valley below like a gaseous sea, islands of mountaintop rising through.

By the time I woke my young charges, the tide of clouds had begun to recede to the north, with a side current sweeping up and over a tree-topped summit like fine hairs running through a comb.

It’s my first time in Boone, and I can’t stop looking at the mountains: the way sunlight and shadow play along their many slopes and crenellations, the sheer scope of this stretch of the Blue Ridge and its muted strength.

I believe I can see a couple dozen peaks from the upper deck at my friend Big Al’s house near the top of Sunset Mountain. There’s no wifi or cable TV here, but yesterday I watched a sunbeam make its way across the nearest range until my coffee grew cold.

Down below, the boys have been discovering the youthful joys of Appalachian State University, their first real exposure to college life that coincides with a guitar symposium of which they are a part.

They ditched me almost immediately on the first morning, which is as it should be. I did the same thing to my father on my first college visit with him, which was so long ago that I still had a mullet (it was a perfectly legitimate haircut at the time).

So I drove the streets of downtown Boone alone, looking for a parking spot — scarce during the week even at They ditched me almost $1 an hour with immediately on the first a two-hour max, morning, which is as it should though after 5 be. I did the same thing to p.m. almost all of the cars disapmy father on my first college pear and parking visit, which was so long ago becomes free. that I still had a mullet.

While my kid and his buddy finished out their college tour and made plans for dinner that did not include me, I killed a few hours with bougie sandwiches and organic coffee on King Street, an authentic college strip where the Mountaineer gear drops in price the further west you go.

And when I realized I would be spending the bulk of evening by myself, I shrugged and headed back up Sunset Mountain just in time to watch the light show.

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April 26 – May 2, 2017

CITY LIFE April 26 – May 2

by Joel Sronce

THURSDAY SEE ME: Looking with In(ten)tion exhibit opening @ High Point Museum, 10 a.m.

The High Point Museum and High Point University partner to bring the SEE ME: Looking with In(ten)tion exhibit to the museum. Fourteen HPU juniors and seniors enrolled in a documentary photography class under the direction of Benita VanWinkle. On Thursday, students conduct a presentation on the resulting exhibit, which focuses on immigrants in High Point and the impact they have on the community. More info at highpointnc.gov.

Sustainability shortfilm competition @ Weatherspoon Art Museum (GSO), 6:30 p.m.

The Weatherspoon Art Museum, the UNCG Office of Sustainability and the Environmental & Sustainability Studies Program present the 8th annual sustainability short-film competition in conclusion of a year-long documentary film and discussion series. Judges score based on relation to sustainability as well as concept, cinematography, acting, production quality, costuming and writing. More info at weatherspoon.uncg.edu.

Jeffrey Dean Foster @ the Barn at Reynolda Village (W-S), 8 p.m.

Jeffrey Dean Foster has been bringing his Americana, folk and rock style to North Carolina for more than 20 years, including the tour of his latest album The Arrow.

The Dead Tongues, a project of songwriter, guitarist and producer Ryan Gustafson, adds a solo set ranging from twangy and bohemian to melancholy and meditative.

More info at reynoldavillage.com.

FRIDAY Arts & Craft Beer @ Sawtooth School (W-S), 5:30 p.m.

The fourth annual Arts & Craft Beer fundraiser event combines craft beer tasting, art demonstrations, art making and live music with all proceeds benefiting the Sawtooth school’s scholarship fund. Area craft brews include Foothills, Hoots, Wicked Weed and more. Guests can create their own screen-printed tote bag and make a pair of earrings from beer bottle caps. More info at sawtooth.org.

SATURDAY Bookmarks groundbreaking and celebration @ 634 W. Fourth St. (W-S), 10 a.m.

Bookmarks celebrates National Independent Bookstore Day with a groundbreaking and celebration for its new bookstore and gathering space in downtown Winston-Salem. The free event includes remarks by Councilman Jeff MacIntosh, a construction-themed storytime with children’s author Megan Bryant, book sales and a look at Bookmarks’ new gathering space and nonprofit independent bookstore.

More info at bookmarksnc.org.

People’s Picnic @ City Center Park (GSO), 1 p.m.

In the spirit of International Workers Day on May 1, join people from across the Triad to enjoy food, music, games and story sharing. The event includes karaoke and activities for adults and kids of all ages. People are welcome to bring their best dishes to share. For more information, including an upcoming International Workers Day action, visit the Facebook event page.

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Bragging on the US News & World Report High School Rankings

News Opinion Cover Story

Weaver Academy students perform Urinetown; the artsy Greensboro high school ranked first in the state for 2017, according to US News & World Report.

You don’t have to be a Weaver parent to celebrate that.

Crossword

Three takeaways from the David Powell saga

by Jordan Green

the real issue at hand? And that is suicide awareness and mental health!”

Triaditude Adjustment

2. In the interest of justice As Danielle Battaglia reported in the News & Record on Tuesday, the state’s criminal case against Powell will be closed. Put simply, when the defendant dies there’s no one left to hold accountable. There’s always a possibility that the alleged victim — the economic development agency — could sue Powell’s estate for recompense. But there probably isn’t much point. As prosecutor Howard Neumann told the N&R: “People who embezzle don’t tend to save it somewhere to give back when they get caught.”

3. Casting a wider net Beyond the personal tragedy and the funds taken from the Piedmont Triad Partnership, the only reasons for people to care about this story and for journalists to dig into it would be if there were indications that others are implicated in Powell’s alleged criminal acts. Did any of his colleagues collude in an embezzlement scheme or help cover it up? Is it possible that Powell agreed to cooperate with federal or state prosecutors to make a case against someone else? Having look at the state case files and read everything I could find about the matter, I think either scenario is highly unlikely.

Shot in the Triad

1. The human story trumps the investigation When former Piedmont Triad Partnership CEO David Powell took his own life in Kure Beach on Sunday, it put a tragic coda on a white-collar crime intrigue that had at least a handful of area reporters monitoring the federal court system for an indictment. (The former economic developer had already been indicted in state court on charges of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars.)

Whether for prurience or to put closure on a public transgression, many of us would have liked to have seen this case go to trial. But a young woman who commented on my Facebook page might have made the essential point: “This wonderful man battled severe depression, and now tragically has taken his own life. How about we address

Sportsball

high school in the state is two miles from my office in downtown Greensboro.

COURTESY PHOTO

Culture

People love telling other people when their kids’ high school makes the US News annual ranking. So it’s pleasurable for me to announce that the Philip J. Weaver Education Center, which counts among its students two of my children, was named this week as the best high school in the state of North Carolina, and No. 39 in the nation.

The quick notes: 6-to-1 student/teacher ratio, 100 percent AP involvement, 95.5 on the college readiness index.

On a more personal note, my sons love it there, and my daughter hopes to attend. The productions — there are a lot of them — are absolutely fantastic and the teachers among the most dedicated and talented I have ever encountered. My mother, herself a teacher of 35 years, agrees.

Elsewhere around the Triad, Early College at Guilford claimed No. 3 in the state, 62nd nationwide and fourth nationally in STEM high schools.

No other area schools cracked the Top 20 in the state, but High Point’s Penn Griffin School hit No. 22, and No. 104 nationally for magnet high schools. Atkins Academic and Tech High in Winston-Salem ranked 24th in the state, High Point’s Academy at Central is No. 39, Greensboro’s Academy at Smith was 45th in the state and UNCG Early/Middle College ranked No. 48.

It’s wonderful to have so many high-performing schools in our cities, and truly remarkable that the best

Up Front

by Brian Clarey

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April 26 – May 2, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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NEWS

New court offers alternative to struggling veterans

by Jordan Green

A small but faithful cohort of veteran offenders shows promise in a court diversion program in Forsyth County designed to provide treatment for mental health and substance abuse problems.

Nicholas Wright, a 61-year-old Navy veteran with combat service in Vietnam who was facing a handful of misdemeanor charges including assaulting an officer, stood before District Court Judge David Sipprell in the Forsyth County Hall of Justice on a recent Wednesday.

The exchange was gentle and respectful.

“I’m staying on my meds,” Wright reported. “I’m staying away from bad company.”

Sipprell, an Air Force veteran, told Wright he’d heard good reports on his progress from his probation officer. In response to Sipprell’s inquiry, Wright confirmed that he was able to keep up his commitment to volunteer at his church on Fridays.

Wright’s mentor, standing beside him, also made a report.

“He’s doing a marvelous job,” the mentor — also a veteran — said. “He’s on the right path. I think he’ll be all right.”

“Okay, see you on May 3 then,” Sipprell said.

Wright was one of the first defendants to volunteer for Forsyth County’s new veterans treatment court, which allows prosecutors to drop minor charges if defendants agree to receive treatment for mental health and substance abuse problems. Wright attended the special court’s first session, on Jan. 18, and can expect to graduate in December if he stays on track, said Jemi Moore, the program coordinator.

With some charges, such as driving while intoxicated, where punishment is tightly restricted by state law, Assistant District Attorney Harold Eustache said the court can still incentivize participation by imposing active jail time at the low end of the sentencing range. Like Sipprell, Eustache and Assistant Public Defender Casey Shillito are both veterans, giving them the ability to empathize with the program participants. In contrast to traditional court, Eustache

Judge David Sipprell, a vetern himself, presides over a new veterans treatment court in Winston-Salem on a recent Wednesday.

and Shillito work in a collaborative as opposed to an adversarial mode in the special veterans court.

Forsyth is the fourth county in the state to institute of veterans treatment court. The program operates with a $75,000 annual federal grant through the Governor’s Crime Commission that Moore said is provisionally approved for a second year in 2018. The program relies on partnerships with nonprofits for some functions like drug testing.

The most recent session of the court, which takes place every first and third Wednesday, went fairly quickly, with one prospective and three returning participants appearing before the judge in less than 30 minutes, all told.

The first case on April 19 was the equivalent of an arraignment, with Sipprell asking a 48-year-old man facing a misdemeanor charge of resisting a public officer if he was interested in the veterans treatment court. The man nodded affirmatively. Moore reported she had scheduled a screening for the man at Veterans Helping Veterans Heal, a Winston-Salem nonprofit that partners with the court, and Sipprell informed the man he would be placed on the docket for the May 17 session.

As a 36-year-old participant dressed in jeans and a black hoodie stood before the judge, Sipprell asked, “How are

JORDAN GREEN

things going?”

“Going good,” the man said, adding that he has been receiving one-on-one counseling.

“That’s what I’m hearing from your probation officer,” Sipprell said. “You’re passing your drug tests. You’re making all your appointments. That’s what we like to see. Just keep on keeping on.”

Sipprell confirmed that another man on the docket had taken over his brother’s landscaping business.

“Between that and meeting your PO, are you keeping busy?” Sipprell asked.

“I’m worn out,” the man responded.

“With all the rain we’ve been getting, you’re probably going to have your hands full,” the judge said. “I’m watching the grass in my yard come up.”

“Do you need your grass mowed?” the man asked.

Sipprell laughed.

“The reports on you are very good,” he said. “You’re going to all your meetings, passing your drugs tests. That’s what we like to see.”

Sipprell said it’s too early to know whether the veterans treatment court in Forsyth County will be successful, although progress reports for the three participants in the April 19 session were uniformly positive. Sipprell added that studies have generally indicated that the special courts, which are based on

a rehabilitative as opposed to punitive model of justice, are beneficial.

Nicholas Wright, the Vietnam veteran, said he was initially skeptical himself.

“At first I was kind of sluggish,” said Wright, who operated LCM boats embarking and disembarking Marines as a self-described “river rat” during his Navy service in Vietnam. “I had an attitude that there was no one that was going to help me. I was defeating my own self. I suffer with PTSD. It’s a roller-coaster.

“Some days are good and some days are bad,” he continued. “I’ve learned that with this court we’re accepted. As long as we keep our head straight. You have requirements to meet to keep [the court officers] happy, and at the same time you’re climbing back up. Society likes to see that someone who’s down is getting back up. Any veterans that’s having a problem I would refer them to this program.”

As part of his treatment, Wright is required to attend a support group for substance abuse.

“People don’t know that drugs and PTSD are hand in hand,” he said. “We use drugs to escape what we’ve been through. We’ve done what we have and what we can for America, and America doesn’t care. Most of us, if asked, would do it again.”

Wright said he attributes his charge of assaulting on an officer to a combination of his mental state and an overreaction on the officer’s part.

“I was off my psychotropic meds,” he said. “It was basically a misunderstanding. If the situation had not been fueled with how I felt with being down on myself and the police officer being aggressive, it would not have happened.

They have to be trained on how a situation might be different with a veteran.

With veterans you have no idea what’s going on in their heads. It’s not an easy life. We have a camaraderie with each other because we get that respect from each other, but we’d rather get it from civilians.”

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Democrats bitterly divided as party fills vacancy on Guilford commission

by Jordan Green

In a surprise matchup between veteran politico Skip Alston and Black Lives Matter activist April Parker for Guilford County Commission, poor organization at the Democratic Party’s base has lots of people feeling angst about representation.

Less than four weeks after the Guilford County Democratic Party elected new leadership, an acrimonious battle has erupted over the appointment of a new representative to fill a vacancy with the recent resignation of Commissioner Ray Trapp.

A party meeting last week devolved into shouting matches with a successful motion to delay a vote to approve the only candidate to Trapp’s seat. Three days later, the newly elected county chairman of the party resigned. With the delay, Black Lives Matter and Queer People of Color Collective organizer April Parker has stepped forward to challenge veteran politician Skip Alston, who is favored by Trapp and the three Democrats who currently serve on the board.

Factions lining up behind the two candidates are leveling mutual charges of manipulating the process, and a second meeting on Wednesday to select Trapp’s replacement from between Alston and Parker — or potentially another eligible Democrat — promises to be fraught with disagreement.

While both candidates are black, with equally matched reputations for outspoken advocacy and polarizing leadership styles, Alston is a seasoned insider, having served on the county commission for 20 years between 1992 and 2012, including five turns as chairman, while Parker is making her first bid for elected office based on a record of community organizing around issues of police brutality, intersectionality, and trans and LGBTQ rights. Alston is known as a skilled budget negotiator, but has also caused controversy as a one-time plaintiff in a Republican-initiated effort to restructure Greensboro City Council.

The strife between the two candidates’ respective backers reflects not only a generational divide, but also racial tension within the party largely stemming from organizational challenges that have resulted in white party

Skip Alston

April Parker

officials holding outsized influence over the appointment process.

Party rules dictate that only members of the county executive committee who live in District 8 — which runs down the east side of Church Street from the northeast corner of the city and then curves around the south side of a rail line through downtown and westward to Guilford College Road — may vote in the special election. The county executive committee is comprised of the chair and vice chair of each organized precinct, county-level officers, members of the state executive committee from Guilford, and Democratic elected officials. The votes of each precinct are weighted by the number of people who voted for the Democratic candidate in the last governor’s race.

Party leaders acknowledge that only six out of 20 precincts in District 8 were organized by the deadline ahead of the

April 8 county convention.

“That means that less than a third of the people in the district really have a voice,” said Heidi Fleshman, the party’s newly elected Greensboro vice chair.

“That’s why there is so much concern that everyone’s voice isn’t recognized.”

Bess Lewis, the party’s executive director, provided Triad City Beat with a list of 19 members of the county executive committee who will be eligible to participate in the appointment vote on Wednesday. The list is split roughly down the middle between black and white electors, along with two electors who were identified as biracial and another whose name didn’t come up in a search of voter records. In contrast, 67.8 percent of voters in the heavily Democratic district are African American.

The skew in Precinct G69, which includes Bennett College and the South-

side neighborhood, is especially lopsided. Three of four electors from the precinct are white in a precinct where 76.3 percent of registered voters are black. The three white electors in G69 — Equality NC Executive Director and former state lawmaker Chris Sgro; Ryan Butler, in-house counsel for Replacements Limited; and Anne Evangelista, a lawyer who recently graduated from Elon Law School — share a house on Gorrell Street in Southside, while Deena Hayes-Greene, a black member of the Guilford County School Board, lives on the other side of Murrow Boulevard.

Sgro’s role in making a second motion to delay the vote on April 18 to allow competition for the appointment has prompted Alston to charge that Sgro and Butler — who are married — are “trying to tear the party apart.

“We as Democrats in Guilford County should be together and not divided,” Alston said. “We should not have whites in a predominantly African-American district dictate the leadership that we would have in the African-American community. That’s dividing us when we should be uniting against the enemy, who at this point are Republicans.”

Sgro rejected Alston’s contention that he made the motion to delay the vote because he wanted to appoint an “openly gay person,” that is Parker, to the county commission.

“The majority of the people in the room made it clear they wanted to make sure there was an opportunity for anyone else who might want to step up to do so,” he said.

“It would be great if Skip could have said, ‘I applaud any other person who is willing to step up, including people of color and queer people, and I think I’m the best candidate,’” Sgro added.

BJ Gerald-Covington, who recently retired as Greensboro vice chair to launch an unsuccessful bid for county chair, said that the G69 precinct was organized in violation of the North Carolina Democratic Party Plan of Organization. Gerald-Covington said she dropped in on the organizational meeting for G69 at Sgro and Butler’s home as part of her duties as Greensboro vice chair to thank people for their participation, but said the meeting ran

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said. “I don’t know what she’s going to do about that.”

Nonsense, Sgro said.

“There’s no reason why it shouldn’t go forward,” he said. “That’s not a question on the table. There’s a 10-day period to challenge those things. Nobody brought it up then or during the county convention.”

If the rules are up for debate, one thing is probably pretty certain.

“It’s gonna be ugly,” Gerald-Covington said.

Up Front

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who’s unquestionably committed to the community.”

Parker, who did not return calls for this story, has also obtained the backing of Greensboro City Councilwoman Sharon Hightower. An endorsement from the councilwoman posted on Parker’s Facebook page reads, “Good fit, better choice. April will fight for the issues in and for our community. As a county commissioner, she will use her strong voice to continue advocating for our community.”

George Scheer, the founder and director of the Elsewhere artist collaborative, added his endorsement on Facebook over the weekend.

“Friends, I hear you saying, ‘April is hard to work with, doesn’t play nice, and is disruptive!’” he wrote. “She’ll tell you she’s never eaten anyone yet!

And let me tell you, as someone who has been bowled over by her vision and demands time and again, I can attest that her radical power is born of love and care. April’s righteousness does not discriminate except in support of those with the least voice. So it takes courage and humility to get back up and shake her hand. Every time I have, I discover in myself a level of growth, insight, voice and understanding that I did not have before.”

Meanwhile, as the 19 electors choose between Parker and Alston, questions about precinct organization are likely to hover over the process. Gerald-Covington said Pam Stubbs, the new interim county chair, has told her she wants to revisit the issue after the District 8 election and potentially reorganize those precincts that are out of compliance.

“We know that this precinct [G69] is in violation; they should not have a voice at the table,” Gerald-Covington

triad-city-beat.com

afoul of party rules by not being held in Evangelista holding positions as precinct a location that was handicapped accesofficers while sharing the same address. sible, by not giving proper notice of the The plan of organization likely leaves meeting to registered Democrats in the some room for argument on that count: precinct and by electing officers, namely It holds that “no officers of the preButler and Evangelista, who live at the cinct committee shall be from the same same address. immediate family residing in the same Butler, who organized the precinct, household.” declined to comment for this story. Sgro, Consistent with the party’s values, who holds a vote in the appointment the plan of organization emphasizes process by virtue of serving on the pardiversity at all levels of party organizaty’s state executive committee, said he’s tion: “The composition of the precinct not aware of anyone having an issue should resemble the makeup of the with handicapped access to the meeting, registered Democrats in the precinct as and he said he wasn’t involved in the to gender, age, race, ethnic background notification process. and, where practical, geography.”

The plan of orSgro said it ganization doesn’t seems too conveA special meeting of the specify who is renient that quesGuilford County Demosponsible for notitions about the fying people about organization of the cratic Party will be held precinct meetings, G69 precinct only at 2300 W. Meadowview stating only that arose when the “the time and place Road, Suite 110 (GSO), on appointment to the of all meetings of county commission Wednesday at 6 p.m. to the North Carolina became an issue. appoint a Democrat to fill Democratic Party “Organizing a at all levels shall be precinct at a local the open Guilford County publicized fully and level is a thankCommission seat. in such a manner less job,” he said. as to assure timely “Ryan waited to notices to all interested people.” see if anyone else was going to step up, As for the location, the plan states and no one did. The county chair asked that precinct meetings are typically him to organize the precinct, and he held at polling places, and that the only stepped up.” circumstance that it’s acceptable to hold While he said he didn’t have Parker a meeting at a location other than a in mind when he made the motion to public facility is when the county chair delay the vote, Sgro said he’s supporting certifies that no public facility is availher now. able in the precinct. In any case, the “I watched April have as many conlocation must be “accessible and open versations as she can,” Sgro said. “She’s to all registered Democrats residing in said, ‘This is who I am. Here’s my email the precinct.” and my phone number. Please, I would Gerald-Covington said she also like to have a conversation with you.’ questions the propriety of Butler and She’s a mother, a librarian and someone

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April 26 – May 2, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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OPINION

EDITORIAL

Winston-Salem gets bullied, backs down Taking the short view, Winston-Salem City Council made what they thought was the right move last week regarding the city’s status as a “welcoming city.”

But it sure does look weak.

Councilmember Dan Besse worked the vanguard of the movement: a play designed to wriggle around a federal backlash against municipalities that declare themselves “sanctuary cities,” an appellation that comes with legislation partially protecting those cities’ immigrant communities from some instances of deportation.

He didn’t have to propose any resolution — Greensboro and High Point certainly didn’t. It was designed to address the concerns of residents who want to defend undocumented immigrants from deportation while avoiding any language that would run afoul of federal and state law.

And when the Forsyth delegation came back from Raleigh, they brought with them a threat from on high. Even Democrat Rep. Ed Hanes urged Besse to quash his resolution. They said that about $13 million in state funds could be withheld from the city as punishment. Most of the rest of council agreed. Besse withdrew.

It’s time for North That feeling of hopelessness he experienced is exactly how our Carolina cities to legislature intended it: Don’t even stand up together. try it, or we will crush you.

These days the legislature seems to be going after every city in North Carolina: The water supply in Asheville has been stripped of local control. The state made a play for the airport in Charlotte, but lost in court. Greensboro was able to defend itself from a redistricting and restructuring gambit orchestrated by its own state senator, Trudy Wade. And we won’t get started on the bathrooms.

But let’s get real for a minute: There are 10 million people living in North Carolina; more than half of them — 5.3 million — live in the top six metropolitan statistical areas of Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, Winston-Salem and Asheville.

State legislative overreach should not be a partisan issue — at least not in the traditional red/blue paradigm. These actions pit our cities, and those dependent on them for their livelihood, against our rural areas. The people in Sen. Majority Leader Phil Berger’s county of Rockingham are almost entirely dependent on the cities around it for their livelihood. And yet he’s the one in charge.

With the issue framed in this way, the numbers start to become uncomfortable for the folks trying to keep the cities down.

Our cities have leverage, through sheer numbers and economic impact. Winston-Salem, a place that’s pegged its entire brand to free and forward thinking, missed a great opportunity to remind the Forsyth County delegation of that fact.

It’s time for North Carolina cities to stand up. Because if we don’t fight back against the forces that would seek to impinge upon us, then we have already lost.

CITIZEN GREEN

Working parents are the invisible class One Saturday morning in early December, I dropped my 3-yearold daughter off at her grandmother’s house in east Greensboro and drove north for about 30

by Jordan Green minutes on Highway 29 to a small, unincorporated village called Pelham near the Virginia state line.

I was looking for a Ku Klux Klan “victory” parade to celebrate election of Donald Trump.

The Klan’s whereabouts were a mystery, and as the hours wore on they remained conspicuously absent.

Meanwhile, in the late morning a growing number of militant, left-wing counter-demonstrators had gathered at a rest area, along with an international media corps that included a reporter from Vice, a producer based in Chapel Hill working for HBO and a correspondent from Japan. Even without the Klan, it turned into a pretty spectacular story when masked anti-fascist protesters wielding baseball bats took to a country road with a banner denouncing the Klan, and a Caswell County deputy failed to prevent the obstruction of a public roadway. I followed the anti-fascist contingent up the highway to the city of Danville, across the state line, where they thought they might encounter the Klan. They briefly rallied in front of the courthouse and then broke for lunch.

The event fell on a weekend when my wife was scheduled to work, and I was responsible for taking care of our daughter. My mother in law, who works third shift at a nursing home, agreed to spot me on childcare so I could cover the Klan parade.

So after the counter-demonstrators went to lunch, I surmised there wasn’t much else to report and headed back to Greensboro.

That afternoon, while my daughter was taking a nap, I posted a story with photos and video about the anti-fascist march in Caswell County. A commenter on Facebook asked me why I hadn’t written about the anti-Klan march through Danville. I apologized for the omission and explained that I was juggling reporting with childcare duties.

My apology, in turn, elicited an enthusiastic note of congratulations from Karen, an old friend in Asheville, who commended me for successfully balancing family and work.

It felt good to be recognized for doing a good job as a parent. I’m not sure if I had ever received that kind of positive reinforcement for parenting from anyone other than my wife. In contrast,

kudos for my paid professional work as a journalist are almost embarrassingly ample, and sometimes, I suspect, undeserved.

Anyone who works a professional gig and actively parents will tell you that the latter is the more challenging job. At my house on Thursday and Friday mornings when I have responsibility for childcare, mornings are a scramble to toilet, dress and feed my child, interspersed with showering and getting dressed myself, making coffee and feeding the cat, and then cleaning up after breakfast. I’m increasingly conscious of the need to make these tasks into teaching opportunities: With encouragement and monitoring, she can go to the bathroom on her own and dress herself.

Likewise, when our daughter makes a mess her mom and I goad her to clean it up even though doing it ourselves would often be quicker.

Washing dishes means that first I need to find a way to occupy my daughter with her toys or books. Cleaning the living room often presents an opportunity to get her involved in putting toys away. As another facet of domestic work, it’s amazing how much time can be consumed with chasing after a child with tissue to wipe a runny nose and then walking to another room to throw the tissue away. When all the mini-crises and have-tos of family life are met and surpassed, there might be time to read together, practice writing letters and undertake other learning activities like discussing shapes and colors.

I know I’m not alone in feeling somewhat invisible as a working parent. I am beginning to relate to the people who are so busy they haven’t even heard of participatory budgeting, much less make the time to attend a meeting or show up for balloting. I constantly vow to go to punk-rock shows and then bail at the last minute, usually with the justification that I’m too broke.

This past Saturday, I thought I would take my daughter to the March for Science in downtown Greensboro as an act of politically engaged parenting, but we ended up going to the park instead so she could ride her scooter.

First, we stopped to visit our next-door neighbors, who were holding a yard sale.

As I mentioned the March for Science to my neighbor, Mike, we both looked at my daughter, who was squealing with delight while waving her arms like an animate scarecrow.

“She’s gonna be just like that,” Mike predicted with a mischievous smile.

The March for Science was a noble idea, but it was never really all that realistic.

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Up Front

Inside the Guilford Democrats Finally some transparency from the outside about what is going on inside the executive board [“Democrats bitterly divided as party fills vacancy on Guilford commission” on page 6, by Jordan Green]! Good understanding of the complexity of precinct organization and the lack thereof. Thank you Jordan Green!

Libby Henson, via triad-city-beat.com

triad-city-beat.com

copy of Shut Up from time to time just to hear how they sounded, pure and raw, before guys like Andy Wallace came along with “computers to fix his s***** tracks.”

I’ve only been to Chapel Hill once, in the late ’90s, but visited a lot of the places he referred to in those early songs — Rosemary and Cameron streets (which I found don’t actually intersect), the Lizard and Snake (previously the Hardback Cafe), the Cat’s Cradle and others. Before the web exploded, I put a lot of information on my original website, which is linked at magicalarmchair.com.

Frank Maynard, Novi, Mich.

TRUTH IS POWER

Ben Folds’ tribe Frank Maynard here, founder of the Magical Armchair website and mailing list, and I just read your great article about Ben and his early bandmates [“A Ben Folds lovefest; April 19, 2017, by Brian Clarey]. It was great going back in time and reading more about Majosha and his other projects.

I’ve known Ben since 1996, shortly after founding the Armchair (which didn’t have that name at first and was a website and manually-run e-mail list). We hooked up when Ben Folds Five came through Detroit for a gig at a 200-capacity club (which I made a recording of) and we’ve been friends ever since. I have met many of the guys in the article at one time or another, and keep in touch with Chuck as well as Ben’s original manager Alan Wolmark, his current manager Mike Kopp and his then-and-now, front-ofhouse audio guy Leo Overtoom.

Looking back on 25+ years of Ben Folds and his music, it amazes me how much he has developed and changed, always moving the needle forward and trying new stuff. But the old stuff brings back memories. I’ll put on my cassette

11

April 26 – May 2, 2017

Greensboro stewards of the beautiful game

Cover Story

by Joel Sronce • photos by Matthew C. Brown

12

Fathers and sons face off at a field near Falkener Elementary in a game Moussa Issifou helped organize.

triad-city-beat.com

t was early on a recent Saturday morning, and Michael Amend had been on the road for hours, picking up players in a church bus in Greensboro and High Point. He hoped the other volunteer drivers weren’t having trouble finding players’ homes, but he didn’t want to talk on the phone while driving.

The morning’s route and the games that followed comprised a handful of the 25 hours a week Amend spends organizing and coaching soccer teams for students and alumni of the Doris Henderson Newcomers School in Greensboro. And this year his new team of 11- and 12-yearolds has meant an additional workload.

Elsewhere in Greensboro, Moussa Issifou received texts and emails — inquiries for that evening’s game held at a field near Falkener Elementary. Issifou came to Greensboro from Togo in September 2000.

Now he’s a professor at NC A&T University, but in the 17 years since his arrival, he has also worked to bring the international community together through soccer — all while enduring unfamiliar restrictions, costs and predispositions.

Narayan Khadka spent the same morning using art to teach English and US citizenship at Greensboro’s Glen Haven Community Center — a welcoming space for support and education located among the apartments of dozens of refugee and immigrant families near North Elm Street and Pisgah Church Road. Khadka arrived in Greensboro from Nepal, and in the years since has pursued an education that would help him unite people and resolve differences. He was waiting to hear about a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro to revitalize the city’s international soccer league; he was the president during its only season back in 2012. There had been many inquiries by those who want it back — people who said they needed it.

These three organizers of immigrant and refugee soccer matches in Greensboro strive to maintain traditions, to do their part for something that endures so strongly in themselves and those they care for, but that the world around them endangers.

They want to provide something hard to define, but for many of the participants, it’s something akin to feeling wholly alive. Their players seek respite, connection, tradition, home. They find it in soccer.

These are the local stewards of the beautiful game.

As the sun went down on April 4, it cast an amber light on the Bennett College soccer field that borders Gate City Boulevard. Almost 20 players had arrived, but the field was empty. Puddles of that morning’s rain kept them off.

Instead, the young men in their late teens kicked soccer balls around on a basketball court next to the soggy field. The hoops and backboards have been removed, leaving only the metal posts — monuments to past play.

Most of the players wore no shoes, not wanting to ruin cleats on the court’s hard surface. Playing barefoot was nothing new; it’s how many of them learned the game in their home countries from a young age, sometimes playing for five or six hours a day. Without cleats on, they still showed incredible finesse.

Coach Michael Amend watched the players, who make up the Greensboro United Soccer Association’s Global team. They are alumni of the Newcomers School, a magnet for first-year immigrants and ref-

13

April 26 – May 2, 2017 Cover Story Players from the Greensboro United Soccer Association’s Global team scrimmage on a field at Smith High School.

14

ugees. Students remain at the Newcomers School for one year, then transition to various schools in the district.

As the players scrimmaged in two separate games in teams of three or four, Anas Quashie limped off the court, the sole of his foot bleeding onto the asphalt. He found one of his socks and wrapped it tightly around the wound.

After the practice, as players waited for city buses or rides home from Amend and one another, Quashie’s peers chided him.

“You must not be from Africa, bro!” one kidded in good nature, showing the group the callous bottom of his right foot.

Quashie is from Africa. He used to play what he calls “street soccer” in the dirt roads of Togo. His feet have softened, adapted since he moved to Greensboro in February 2016.

Of the many challenges that a young refugee faces in the United States, the ones related to changes in soccer are often no less significant than ones off the field. Playing soccer sustains many of these young men: The game transcends to become symbolic — a connection to a new home and the reminder of an old one.

Quashie said the hardest adjustment in his soccer life has been the difference between the dirt streets of Togo and the large grass fields in Greensboro. The game itself has changed.

Soccer encompasses the cultural differences that all of

the young men face. They’ve come from other traditions in Egypt, Congo, El Salvador, Liberia, Iraq and various other countries around the world.

Quashie’s teammate Makryous Kori misses the sand pitches in Sudan, where he grew up. He misses using rocks to mark the goals, and he misses his friends who he occasionally talks with on the phone, who ask him when he’s coming home.

But there are greater differences than a change in the playing surface, and a new prerequisite toward practices and matches might be the most challenging.

“You have to call people in the US to [arrange a time] to play,” Kori explained. In Sudan, he said, everyone played in the streets all day long. Pickup soccer was as much a part of life as anything else.

As refugees acclimate to life in Greensboro, to fresh traditions at the Newcomers School and beyond, changes are inevitable.

The weekly pickup game began before Moussa Issifou arrived, but he was by no means lost or out of luck. His group formed these sides often, and he knew the rule: If you’re married, you’re on one team; if not, you’re on the other.

The division might not have been followed precisely, and the teams were already unbalanced — 11 bachelors

against 13 espoused, with Issifou joining the latter. But for Issifou, accuracy carried less importance than a greater goal. He didn’t call them married and unmarried. He called them fathers and sons.

“We do this sometimes,” Issifou explained as he waited to sub in during an April 16 game. “It’s a way to play our sons. They get excited and want to score.”

Understandably, the sons want to beat their fathers — the adults or elders. But just as importantly for Issifou, they simply want to play.

Soccer is a tradition — a fact lost to those who don’t include sports in the ranks of language, food, music and dance. Yet like any part of culture, a community’s athletic and sports traditions can falter as the youngest generations of families new to the United States adjust.

That jeopardy isn’t lost to Issifou: “Our kids that are born here, some of them are still following soccer, but some others are going to basketball, baseball and football…. So right now we’re playing with our old kids on the same field and team. Some of them have grown up to catch up with us. We want to maintain them; when you go and watch you will not know who is the dad, who is the son.”

After the separate sides warmed up — the fathers as a synchronized regiment and the sons in a loose circle of chatter — the sons removed their shirts and the game began.

Players on the field usually range from around 15 to

anthropologist, sociologist, a conflict resolution student,” Khadka explained. “So my interest is how we use sports to bring people together or resolve their differences.”

Growing up, Khadka played some soccer in his home country of Nepal, though it was often hard to come by.

“At that time, there was no ball available — you couldn’t afford to buy a ball,” he explained. “You made your own ball with some cloths; in childhood we would play with that.”

Khadka recognizes the endurance of soccer through struggle. He understands its value for those who have been displaced — its ability to become a diversion from a demolished previous life. “[Soccer] is entertainment, and also it’s a kind of tool for For years, assimilation wasn’t the only barrier to Issifou’s healing,” he said. “They used to play in Bhutan, and when international soccer community — access to fields held they came to refugee camps, they organized themselves them back.

“Initially, we were managing to go where we found there and tried to find a field and play. So when they came [to Greensboro], they wanted to do the same. They try to a field,” Issifou said. “We just organized and played. It forget what happened in the past. Problems, trauma, psyhas been more and more difficult throughout the years chological trauma — they want to forget that, and [soccer] because the field organizers restrict you.” helps. Soccer is a means of healing.”

Finally, Issifou’s group benefited from the collective Obviously, this function of the beautiful game isn’t effort. limited to refugees from Bhutan or Nepal.

“This is where I’m going to salute the city of Greens“You see that also from refugees from Africa,” Khadka boro,” Issifou proclaimed. “We approached them as an said. “Soccer builds a community. When we had our tourinternational community, and we were able to get them to nament, a lot of people were coming. Not only players grant us permission to play on some fields that are owned — the families were coming and the community was also and maintained by the city. I would say that it is a very coming…. Sports have that power. But for the refugees good investment they have made…. The city of Greensand immigrants I think soccer is very popular; and soccer boro has done this and we appreciate that very much. has something to make them changed, inspired.”

Now we don’t have any worry; we know where the fields Many in the city’s international communities see the are…. For the whole summer we have a place to go play.” same value in soccer, including This will be the second summer Issifou’s group has access to those ‘[Soccer] is entertainment, Issifou, a member of the Greensboro International Soccer League’s technifields. cal committee.

Counting on further city coopera- and also it’s a kind of tool “It keeps you looking forward to tion, Issifou hopes for a tournament for healing.’ another game, and that is a pleasure that could bring people together – Narayan Khadka to have,” Issifou explained when across nationalities. discussing his regular weekend “This is what sport does: It brings competition at the Falkener Elementary field. “Because at people from many backgrounds together and builds least you are not only just working; you have two days to some kind of camaraderie that would never be built if go there and relax and laugh, especially. there was no sport,” he said. “[The city] could step in and “You’re not living a life where stress has taken over to think about organizing some tournaments and leagues for the point where you don’t feel like staying here,” he consoccer whereby different age groups could play.” tinued. “Personally, I think it has helped in terms of erasing It wouldn’t be the first attempt at an international any stress that may be there…. Even if I have a headache, soccer league. if I go play soccer, that is over.”

In 2011, immigrants and refugees in Greensboro started But despite the importance and community support, to discuss a soccer league following the success of the the league didn’t last.

United Dashain Festival, which brought together Bhuta“We did the league one year, but the next year what nese and Nepalese people living in the Triad and included happened is that parks & rec wanted to charge $500, and a match between local Bhutanese and Nepalese soccer our teams could not come up with it,” Khadka said. “So teams. there was no grant, nothing, and we could not do it the With the help of the FaithAction International House, next year.” the Triad International Soccer League organized several The participation fee the city demanded was high international tournaments with teams and players repreenough that many people couldn’t afford their part up senting many African and Asian ethnicities. The following front, or didn’t want to return and pay the following seayear, the Greensboro Parks & Rec Department agreed to son, Khadka explained. sponsor the league, renamed the Greensboro InternationAmanda Lehmert, a communications specialist for al Soccer League of the Triad. the city of Greensboro, confirmed that only one team Narayan Khadka, who served as the league’s president, paid the full $500, despite a drop in price from $700 the strongly believes in the convivial power of the sport. preceding season.

“I’m interested in a soccer league because I’m an In the past we’ve had a tournament here for that, with trophies even, but we have not done that for five years.”

At least once, the Togo team won the tournament on its independence day.

Regardless of marital or national affiliation, camaraderie comes easy through shared time on the soccer pitch. “[It] makes people click very, very, very fast,” Issifou said. “You play with some people one time, that’s it. Wherever you see each other, you know: This person plays this game.”

triad-city-beat.com

50. In special circumstances, the fathers allow the even younger kids to join.

“If we don’t have enough players, [the younger kids] want to play,” Issifou explained. “We put them [in] there and we know how to play with them and train them.”

This wasn’t the case on April 16. As the big game got underway, some of the youngest kids started a miniature match in an unused corner of the field, while others tore around the parking lot on bikes with training wheels or partook in a large box of Bojangles fast food.

Sometimes when Issifou plays, memories of his own younger days appear.

“You look back and you are not completely detached from your time growing up,” he said. “Sometimes you want to make some moves like you used to do…. It keeps you still connected.”

Issifou, now 48, admitted that these moves are not quite as common as they used to be.

“Sometimes you just watch the ball pass and you cannot do anything,” he laughed. “But we’re still trying to maintain. I can no longer do like I used to do. Still, I’m happy that I can go there and run with the kids and play.”

Partway through the game, due to a handball near the goal, Moussa was awarded a penalty kick on the unguarded small net from half field, a challenging distance of 30 or 40 yards. To the sons’ delight, he missed horribly to the left.

Even as the game embodied tradition, one difference divided the generations.

The sons spoke English on the field; they complained to the ref — a man who usually plays on the fathers’ side — in English; they advised and encouraged each other in English. As often as not, their English carried no Togolese, Congolese or Somali accent.

“Hey, stop arguing!” a son called from his goal toward the scrum of players upfield. “Y’all messing up the chemistry!”

But the fathers rarely spoke English — not to the ref, to each other, or in frustrated or joyous exclamations.

Despite the difference, Issifou said that he and the other fathers try to use the games as a chance to maintain languages as well as the sport itself.

After an hour of continuous, contentious play, the contest ended 0 to 0. A scoreless final is common, Issifou said, due to the intensity brought forth when the fathers and sons square off.

Even when Issifou’s pickup games don’t set fathers against sons, traditions can still play an important role.

“Teams here are naturally — or somehow — organized based on affinity,” Issifou explained. “You don’t sit anywhere and say, ‘We’re going to create a team or a league.’

But people from the same countries [come together]…

If there is an independence of — let’s say, Togo Independence Day — we can say, ‘Okay, we’re going to play a game against Niger or Nigeria or Congo.’ Then the Togolese people will gather, Nigerian people will gather, and then we will play…. But everybody can come and join.

“The majority of the people might be from one region, but other people can play as well,” he continued. “It’s not like a solid team where you have a roster and say everybody should do this, no. But when it comes to games, you could put a region or country as a name and go play….

15

April 26 – May 2, 2017 Cover Story Coach Michael Amend explains the movement on the field to his team of 11- and 12-year-olds.

“In lieu of an organized league, we have designated times for Hester Park pickup games, where everyone can go play,” Lehmert said.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the city has reserved Hester Park for soccer from 6 p.m. to dark, Lehmert explained.

But now with a grant application sent off to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, Khadka is hoping to get another tournament going in Hester Park

by Memorial Day weekend this year.

16

On April 13, the Greensboro United Soccer Association’s Global team practiced at Smith High School, while the students were gone for spring break.

After warming up, the players stood around the circle at center field. Coach Amend had them call out a teammate’s name as they passed him a ball. Soon three balls were going simultaneously, and a continuous string of players’ names sounded out across the field.

There are many different first languages among the 17 players at the Global team’s practice — Arabic, French,

Spanish, Haitian Creole and others. But the players know each others’ names, and everybody speaks soccer.

“You only need to know, ‘Yes, yes,yes!’ and ‘Go!’,” Mohab Eid, a 17 year-old from Egypt, said smiling. He’s one of several players on the Global team who speak Arabic, and even they have different dialects.

The players remained around the circle, but Amend chose two to try to intercept the passes — now with only one ball going. The 15 players around the circle had five attempts to complete 10 consecutive passes without the two opponents gaining possession.

They didn’t make it, so Amend ordered 25 pushups each.

The teammates howled and groaned and threw themselves on the ground in comical protest and defeat. But it seemed they loved it all.

The callousness of displacement does not soften like the sole of a foot. There are challenges in the lives of refugees and immigrants — both in public and private — unimaginable to those who have never been forced from their homes.

A few days before the Global team’s practice, Amend’s new team of 11- and 12-year-olds played a game in the

Spears YMCA soccer league on April 8. Some of the kids became nervous when a couple of airplanes passed overhead. They looked darkly toward the sky, and their shoulders rose with trepidation. But they would laugh and tease and put an arm around each other after the shadows and sound of the engines were gone — a camaraderie beyond words, an empathy curative and essential.

Sport brings — at its most extraordinary and consequential — a togetherness, a bivouac against the horror of a previous life.

“We are one family,” Eid summed up, still smiling, during the Global team practice. “I love this family.”

In Greensboro, as it does around the world, sport becomes symbolic of kinship. The separate and diverse trials of the players’ pasts meet on a field here, and the players take part in something more than a game, something perhaps even more beautiful than the game itself. Soccer becomes a recognition of fellowship, an act of solidarity, a ballot, an invitation to be included.

They take the field together to maintain a tradition and a memory of a bigger world — to simultaneously conceive of a life within and beyond the walls of the United States.

triad-city-beat.com

CULTURE From a High Point gas station, Tasty Halal

by Eric Ginsburg

I

Opinion Cover Story Culture

The lamb gyro — and the secret sauce that comes on it — at Tasty Halal is so good that it’s worth stopping for even if you’re between meals.

ERIC GINSBURG

Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

note that later I’d need to inquire about the sauce’s compotruck, and yard signs stick out of the grass alongside the gas station’s lot advertising Tasty Halal’s offerings. This Sunonents. co has its own food mart, but that’s not where the alluring Turns out it’s a secret. When I called Tasty Halal, after getting bounced from the main line with a 919 number to a mansmells emanated from.

All of the food here is halal, a term referring to what’s perager with a New York area code, I learned that only the folks higher up in the business know its true contents. The manager missible to eat in the Muslim faith not dissimilar to kosher for I talked to said he had no idea, and that’s observant Jews. The owners trace their heritage to Pakistan — an overwhelmintentional. I can respect that.

The High Point food truck is the ingly Muslim country wedged between Visit Tasty Halal food truck Afghanistan and India — and actually owners’ first in North Carolina, but the at 2010 S. Main St. (HP). location makes sense — it’s just around run several halal food trucks including one in New York City. They aim to grow the corner from the Islamic Center of Read more at tastyhalalnc.

High Point, and it couldn’t be closer to the business, opening a pushcart soon in com or find it on Facebook.

Business 85. It’s just a 20-minute drive Greensboro, a manager with the business later told me. from downtown Greensboro, and you can make it from downtown Winston-Salem in 30 flat. You’d That helps explain the high quality and superb execution of my lamb gyro. Even though I’d already eaten, I had to keep be well advised to make the trip, or drum up enough interest to convince Tasty Halal to roll to you. reminding myself to slow down and savor each bite. Had it been warmer, I would’ve lounged on a picnic table for a while, I’ve only tried the lamb gyro, but based on how satisfied I left that parking lot, I’m willing to vouch for the falafel, birymaybe even being tempted to order more. ani and kabobs. The burger, cheesesteak and hot dog might be The spicy sauce may have been the best part, though it was still relatively mild. It dripped on my fingers, which I shameworthwhile too, but I’ll question your judgment if you pick one of these concessions to the local market. lessly licked clean despite holding napkins. I made a mental

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Tater Tots & Beer Festival @ LeBauer Park (GSO), Sunday, 3 p.m.

Come out to the travelling Tater Tots & Beer Festival and sample dozens of domestic, imported and craft beers, as well as food boats filled with many different tater-tot recipes. Ticket reservation is required. For more information, visit tatertotfestival.com.

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Pick of the Week

Up Front

’ve driven from Baltimore to San Francisco and up and down the length of the Eastern Seaboard, but the best-smelling gas station I’ve ever stopped at stands in south-central High Point, North Carolina.

That is, at least if you pull into the northernmost side of this Sunoco’s parking lot.

There are plenty of great joints that I call “gas station food” in the Triad, most notably Uptown Pizza & Wings in Greensboro — where I grab a gyro by the Triad City Beat office almost every Tuesday — and Taco Riendo 3 in Winston-Salem. And while I swear by Greensboro’s Crazy Ribman and miss the scent of turkey barbecue from Dee’s Juke Joint, the aroma wafting into my car from Tasty Halal proved to be more powerfully enticing.

When I pulled into the lot near the intersection of South Main Street and Business 85 recently, I’d just eaten lunch. As in, I was driving directly from finishing a tostada, a taco, chips, rice and beans. But the smell of cooking meat and dancing spices took hold, and I navigated my car into a makeshift spot alongside the Tasty Halal food truck.

I couldn’t help it.

Staring at the menu that ranges from chicken biryani — a rice dish that my colleague recommends here — to a Philly cheesesteak, the lamb gyro stood out to me. When I asked the man inside to name their best dish, he stumbled, and after I mentioned the gyro, he seconded the idea. That made it hard to discern his true preference, but I stuck with my gut, asking for it spicy and grabbing a drink from the cooler that’s built into the front of the truck like a kangaroo pouch.

Two picnic tables flank the food

17

Triaditude Adjustment

FOR LEASE

April 26 – May 2, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball

hen Shaina Gold first took chemistry in college, she hated it. She didn’t mesh with her professor, and nothing about the subject made sense.

Now, she’s pursuing a hobby that’s all chemistry — and loves

by Kat Bodrie it.

Gold has been bartending at Gibb’s Hundred Brewing in downtown Greensboro on Saturdays since last August and recently took a stab at the brewing helm.

“Other [bartenders] have [brewed] here, and I wanted to do something more funky,” she said.

Gibb’s is known for its darker and hoppier beers, like the popular ESB and IPAs. But Gold wrote a recipe for a hefeweizen with banana and strawberry flavors.

“I have a huge sweet tooth,” Gold said. “Hefe is a dessert beer, and I like that appeal.”

She showed it to the assistant brewer, William Brown, who suggested a different yeast strain to give it more banana flavor. Other than that, he said, he just “showed up to help and make sure she didn’t scald herself.”

Gold offers a different story. “This was really the KAT BODRIE Shaina Gold is one of the few female Triad brewers, and her small batch Dishonest Hefeweizen was a brains of William,” she said. “I was the Pinky to his hit at Gibb’s Hundred Brewing on April 18.

Brain.”

There are two logistical reasons to get bartenders Justice — “Dr. J,” as Gold calls him — pontificated over said. “We tend to take it for granted, but everything is involved in the brewing process, Brown explained: So a mug of the murky yellow brew. “Every part of it is science.” they give better tours, and so chemistry, from the bitters of In a male-dominated industry, Gold is one of few some of the burden is eased off hops to the sugar from malted local women brewing beer, and she’s one of the few him and the head brewer, John barley.” women in a STEM field. Currently a physical therapy Visit Gibb’s Hundred Brewing Priest.

Justice, who has helped others hand technician at Guilford Orthopaedic and Sports But the public benefits, too. At at 117 W. Lewis St. (GSO) or homebrew for 20 years, said Gold Medicine Center, she plans to apply to physician assisGold’s beer release party on April find it on Facebook. is a star student in his chemistry tant school.

18, a healthy crowd assembled to course at GTCC. “Women are just as powerful in the science field as taste her Dishonest Hefeweizen, “I’m proud because she makes men,” Gold said. a name that comes from the beer’s divergence from great beer,” he said.

Considering the keg kicked an hour before the rethe traditional recipe. Brown, who homebrewed for Now that it’s been eight years since her first college lease party officially ended, it’d be hard to argue with five years before working for Gibb’s, was among Gold’s chemistry course, the subject makes sense to her, and her. supporters at the brewery last week. So was her curshe sees how it relates to both brewing and everyday Kat loves red wine, Milan Kundera, and the Shins. She rent chemistry professor. life. wears scarves at katbodrie.com.

“There’s chemistry in bacon and in beer,” Robert “Brewing involves chemistry and microbiology,” she

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Kicking the keg with Shaina Gold

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info@yourhometriad.com

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2021 Maywood Unit E Greensboro, NC 27403

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683 Winners Pt. Whitsett, NC 27377

2 BR, 1 BA, $525

4 BR, 1.5 BA, $900

3 BR, 2 BA, $950

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CULTURE Resurrected from the dead, GSO Fest returns

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Up Front News Opinion Cover Story

Greensboro’s the Old One-Two deliver a wild and frenzied set at Westerwood Taven for GSO Fest 2017.

Sportsball All Showtimes @ 9:00pm

4/27

Nik Bullins & The Crooked Saints, Joshua Shelton, Magpie Thief

4/28

Multicult, Ibidem, Vesu, Mortimer

4/29

Afternoon Flea Market at 3pm with music at 5pm by 18th And Addison, All MyCircuits, Come Clean, Downhaul, Chris Ellington, followed by Nite Moves Dance After Party

4/30

Marco Butcher, Robert Kennedy, The Chicken Snake

Pick of the Week À la Carte @ First Presbyterian Church (GSO), Thursday, 7:30 p.m. À la Carte, a new concert series in Greensboro, hosts its second concert of various genres and styles. Directed by Clara O’Brien (a UNCG voice professor) and Lance Hulme (a professor of music at North Carolina Central University) À la Carte presents an array of ensembles and artists performing classical repertoire, jazz, world music and more.

For this concert, nine performers play music by Strozzi, Brahms and others. More info at alcgreensboro.com.

701 N Trade Street Winston-Salem, NC 27101

(336)955-1888

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Jesse R. Berlin, Sext Message, Mauve Angeles

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unique is its focus on Greensboro music. No national headliners or touring bands stopping off to join the festival, but all the music came from the heart of the Triad, illuminating the deep well of talent which resounds in the local scene.

While the festival was well organized and it was apparent that much thought went into venues and line-ups, the struggle for festival-goers was the commute necessary to catch all of the shows. Most of the venues were within a few minutes’ drive of each other, but this only makes for an encumbrance when rushing to try and catch the next act with little or no time to spare. The block schedule of GSO Fest aided in easing this caroming from club to club, though it could perhaps become a little smoother in coming years.

“It was just so loud and beautiful,” Randy Seals, owner and producer at On Pop of the World Studios said about hosting shows at his studio on April 21. “So many people came out and the line-up was so different, but just perfect.”

SPENCER KM BROWN

Culture

by Spencer KM Brown he crowd piled in along the narrow bar at Westerwood Tavern, forming a semicircle around the small, ground-level stage. All eyes watched as the Old OneTwo’s guitarist, Chadd Myers, knelt beside his guitar running a slide along the strings and beating the neck with a drumstick.

Hawke Kelley — lead singer of the wild, lo-fi, bluesy trio — stood on a chair and stretched his arms out over the crowds as his soulfully rugged voice belted out the lyrics. The crowd was alive in a way that doesn’t always surface at a normal show.

That’s because this was Day 3 of GSO Fest, and the excitement had been building for days.

“It’s like a holiday,” festival attendee Donna Smith said.

“You just go to shows all day, take a break for dinner or something, and then go back because the party is still going on.”

The show at Westerwood Tavern marked the opening shows for the final day of the resurrected fest. The music festival had been gone for three years and showed no hope of revival as organizational frustrations piled up. After making its mark on the Triad when Mike Wallace, a member of Drag Sounds, got the idea of the festival off its feet, the torch was passed among various hands through 10 years of shows. Sam Martin of Greensboro-based Three-Brained Robot was the last organizer of the event before he moved out of state and the festival went on hiatus in 2014.

Not until the Kneads’ drummer Joe Garrigan sent a few emails this past winter did the idea of bringing the festival back from the dead really take form.

“This new incarnation was literally born out of Joe emailing us over the winter and everyone really missing getting together over a weekend explosion of Greensboro music,” festival organizer Katei Cranford said in an email to Triad City Beat. “A couple of years will turn frustration into nostalgia and we’re hoping to turn that into a lot of fun.”

Spread over three days, GSO Fest is less of a “festival,” in the more traditional sense, and more so a weekend party and snapshot of local bands who are around and a part of the scene at the time, performing at myriad local venues. Through the years, festival-goers have seen these different pockets of Greensboro bands and venues change over time.

This year, the music festival hosted 24 bands at eight separate venues, spreading out from neighborhood dive bars to downtown stages. While the festival opened on April 20 with ambient and indie acts such as Transport 77 and Modern Robot at Geeksboro, April 21 saw an abundant crowd for a late-night line-up of Greensboro metal favorites, Torch Runner, Night Sweats and Dreaded at New York Pizza.

“It’s amazing that it’s finally come back,” Kelley of the Old One-Two said. “I think we’ve played almost every GSO Fest in the past and it was sad to see it go. But this is awesome. It’s just great to be a part of it.”

The beauty of this music festival is that — since its inception

by Mike Wallace, who at the time was still in high school — the organization has changed hands and more people have become a part of making it come to life. Showcasing some of the best bands in the Triad in variety of genres from indie to thrash metal, GSO Fest brought out a collage of fans who all came to the free shows not only for the music, but for the camaraderie among friends and for the chance to be a part of an important movement in the Triad music scene. What makes this festival

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April 26 – May 2, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Cover Story Culture Sportsball Crossword Shot in the Triad Triaditude Adjustment

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CULTURE Students take on play by Moonlight author

by Joel Sronce

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hen Oya runs, her legs start stirring a song in the air — legs that sing like a cricket’s, a song like a little lullaby.

“Oya in the air,” they say in San Pere, La. “Oya in the air.”

In Yoruba mythology, Oya is the goddess of wind and storms.

In Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play In the Red and Brown Water, Oya is a young woman whose talent as a track runner gains the admiration of those around her and leads to a potential college scholarship. But when she misses her chance in order to care for her ailing mother, the storms in her life begin to take form.

Under new director Darius Omar Williams, the theater program at NC A&T University presents In the Red and Brown Water — the first play in McC OURTESY IMAGE Joseph Johnson and April Davis perform the roles of Shango and Oya — lovers in NC A&T University’s production of Craney’s trilogy the Brother/ In the Red and Brown Water.

Sister Plays — during the last two weekends in April. these lines, adding humor and a strange but effective depth to As Mama Moja, Latrice Richardson provided great comedic In his director’s notes, Williams praisthe characters and their storytelling. timing to match the humorous aspects of the script. Richardes the lyrical and innovative writing of The spoken stage directions extend beyond the common son announced her stage direction: “Moja looks at him like McCraney, who recently won an Acade“Mama Moja enters” or “Shango exits” ‘What I say?’” directly before addressing my Award for Best Adapted Screenplay to lines that evoke more emotion within the character: “What I say??” for Moonlight — a film based on his the character and likewise provide a In the Red and Brown Water centers See In the Red and Brown semi-autobiographical play In Moongreater audience understanding. the idea of change, and the changes that light Black Boys Look Blue. Williams Water at NC A&T’s Paul “Oya girl looks to the sky, finds no never come are often as fateful as the lauds McCraney’s weaving together of answers there,” Oya reveals when ones that do; life takes Oya’s mother Robeson Theatre on ThursYoruba myth and the lives of margindiscussing death with a lover. Though away but never brings Oya a child of her day, Friday and Saturday at alized African Americans in order to Oya’s skyward gaze alone would have own. Yet despite the directness of its 7 p.m. as well as April 30 at 3 present the story of Oya and the earthly suggested her internalized emotions to storytelling, the play avoids concise conand spiritual worlds around her. p.m. More info at ncat.edu. the viewers, the audible stage direction clusions and limits clear understanding.

“One of the most prevalent questions furthers the viewers’ perception.

For the director, it seems, whether or that resonates in the play is: What do The component also adds a considernot change comes — and whatever they we as individual and collective beings able amount of humor to the play, including lines such as one happen to be — should not control one’s life. Rather, it’s how do when we are caught in the middle in a conversation between Oya and Aunt Elegua. the change is faced. of a storm that holds the potential to “Elegua stops and looks at her smart-ass goddaughter,” Williams ends his director’s notes: “My sincere hope is that tailspin us into a tragic fate?” Williams Aunt Elegua says during an altercation about the death of this production encourages us all to uphold ourselves in the writes.

Oya’s mother. light in spite of whatever agonies pulsate within us.”

For Oya — often referred to as “Oya Through Williams’ direction in their production on Sunday, girl” — the death of her mother, two the actors succeeded in combining their own physical and stormy romances, an obsession with emotional performances with the unpregnancy and the paralysis of her disguised stage directions that preceded impoverished Louisiana life brew this Pick of the Week their lines. storm and lead to her tragic acts and In his performance as Shango — a fate.

Christine Marshall, Ross White & Michael McFee @ Scuppernong Books lover of Oya’s — Joseph Johnson aptly inThe play’s most unique, experimental (GSO), Saturday, 7 p.m. corporated the stage directions into his component arises in the characters’ The UNCG MFA program and Unicorn Press host a Christine Marshall, Ross character’s mood — cackling “Shango stage directions — the italic lines in a White and Michael McFee poetry reading. Marshall teaches at Davidson College exits” in a humorous spirit, or presentscript normally included to guide the and has work appearing in Best American Poetry, while White and McFee — proing a more dangerous “Shango grins, a actors in their nonverbal performances. fessors at UNC-Chapel Hill — read from new collections published in 2017. The glint of war in his eyes” when encounBut in McCraney’s play, the actors speak event is free and open to the public. More info at scuppernongbooks.com. tering Oya’s other romantic partner.

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CROSSWORD ‘Mic Drop’ — [silence!]

by Matt Jones Across

Down

Friday Night Standup Presents

Sam Mazany

8:30 p.m. Friday, April 28th. Tickets $10.

OTHER SHOWS Improv Jam! Show up and Play!

10:00 p.m. Fri., Apr. 28th. $6 tickets!

Saturday Family Show!

4 p.m. Sat., Apr. 29th. $6 tickets!

Improv 8:30 p.m. & 10 p.m. Sat., Apr. 29th. $9 Tickets!

Discount tickets available @ Ibcomedy.yapsody.com

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Hit with force Flight stat Greet someone “Death of a Salesman” director Kazan Paint in a kindergarten classroom Ledger role, with “The” Unwrap Bill-killing votes Biceps site Durability Stampede members Load up with Punish by fine Crash for a few Beforehand, for short “Forbidden” fragrance brand name “QI” regular Davies Unpredictable move

Playing April 28 – 29

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 19 21 23 24 26

28 “Back in the ___” (Beatles song) 29 Foolheaded 30 “Luka” singer Suzanne 33 Neighbor of Azerbaijan 34 Skatepark fixture 38 Sensory system for some primitive invertebrates 39 Have down pat 40 Dirt bikes’ relatives, briefly 42 First American college to go co-ed 43 Farmer Yasgur of Woodstock 44 Country singer Vince 45 Akihito, e.g.

46 Makes use (of) 47 Thomas of “Reno 911!”

48 Largest inland city in California 52 Either T in “Aristotle” 53 Sail poles 56 Read a QR code, e.g.

57 Road work marker 58 “That ain’t gonna work” 60 Ft. Worth campus 62 Glass on NPR 63 Badger repeatedly

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56 Having sides of different lengths, as triangles go 59 Rip on one type of lettuce?

61 Samurai without a master 64 Chaney of “The Wolf Man” 65 “That ain’t gonna work” 66 “Einstein on the Beach,” for one 67 ___-Caps (theater candy) 68 Representative Devin in 2017 news 69 Fix a friend’s listing in a Facebook photo, e.g.

Up Front

1 Alarm clock button 6 Last name of a trio of singing brothers 11 1040 preparer 14 “It is ___ told by an idiot”: Macbeth 15 Dizzying images 16 Set your sights 17 Bialik of “The Big Bang Theory” 18 Highly important cloak?

20 Goes on 22 Lightning McQueen’s pal 23 ___ kwon do 25 “To ___ is human ...”

26 Freezer bag brand 27 Draw 29 Novelist Turgenev 31 180∞ from WSW 32 Salad dressing with a light, woody taste?

35 Singles, in Spain 36 Shirt that’s seen better days 37 “My Way” lyricist Paul 41 Business course that draws heavily on Julius Caesar?

46 “Ha! I kill me!” alien 49 Batman foe 50 Comedy style based on “yes, and” 51 Highest point 53 Show that bronies are fans of, for short 54 Bugs and Rabbits, e.g.

55 “That was ___-death experience”

Board Game Sportsball

Night Fridays 7pm — 2am

Answers from previous publication.

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Up Front April 26 – May 2, 2017

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Spring Garden Street

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Next year, I’m camping on the sidewalk

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Large 1-topping pizza

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PIZZERIA

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‘Yes, we brought vinyl back,’ there is no way you can discount what Record Store Day and record stores have meant to vinyl and its resurgence,” RSD co-founder Carrie Colliton told Billboard magazine.

(She’s not kidding: Record Store Day 2016 produced the biggest week of vinyl LP sales since SoundScan started tracking sales data in 1991.)

“I never thought it would be like this, with people lining up around the corner from the door,” Hodges said. “But two years in a row, I have put as much money into inventory for Record Store Day as I used to open the Jelisa at the front of the line for Record Store Day outside Underdog Records BILL BEYEA store originally. It’s pretty in Winston-Salem, casually interrogating diehard vinyl fan Bob Stillwagoner. intense.” walked inside. The rest of us watched through the Personally, this is my fifth Record Store Day and I windows, hoping they’d get what they wanted, while circle that date on the calendar as soon as it’s anpsychically willing them to leave it all for us. I was out nounced. I love obsessing over the annual list of releasof luck: Stillwater walked out with Bowie in the middle es, the surprise of actually seeing one at Underdog, the of a stack the size of a human toddler. feeling of rubbing my fingertips over the silver “Record “He earned that,” someone said, and we all agreed.

Store Day” hype stickers stuck to the front of each Hodges said that the store was packed until an hour record. (Who else is turned on right now?) I also love before closing and, by the next day, there were just a the atmosphere, the easy conversations that happen couple of dozen titles left. in line while you’re comparing wish lists with strangers “It was a really good day,” he said. “I did have two and the legit delight when the dude who’s been talking people say ‘I want to beat Bob next year,’ so we’ll see.” about Toto all morning gets his own copy. (At least Make that three.

I think that’s what he was talking about; I was busy wondering whether I could convince Stillwagoner that those Bowie records had been dipped in polio.)

“Record Store Day is nothing like Black Friday at bigJelisa Castrodale is a freelance writer who lives in box stores,” Hodges said. “There’s so much camaraWinston-Salem. She enjoys pizza, obscure power-pop derie and you always see people grabbing something records and will probably die alone. Follow her on Twitter for somebody they’ve talked to for two hours outside @gordonshumway. who’s five people back.

They hand it off when they come in the store, like ‘Here’s what you wanted.’

The community aspect is a huge part of what makes it feel like a success.”

He’s right. It’s not Black Friday, where a woman in a mobility scooter will slash your hamstrings to Good through 5/2/17 beat you to the rack of $4 toasters. When the doors Monday – Thursday opened at 8 a.m., StillwagOrder online at pizzerialitaliano.net oner and the three or four 219 S Elm Street, Greensboro • people behind him calmly

Up Front

wake up before my alarm goes off on one very specific day every year. That day — Record Store Day — was on Saturday, which means that I was out of bed, had brushed the majority of my teeth and was walking to Underdog Records

by Jelisa Castrodale just after 5:30 a.m. It also means that I took my place in the then-10 person line almost 12 — twelve! — hours after Bob Stillwagoner did.

This was Stillwagoner’s third Record Store Day, and the second time he’d set up base camp on a downtown Winston-Salem sidewalk. Due to the angry red splotches on the overnight local radar, this year he was the Eddie Bauer of Burke Street, pitching a pale blue tent underneath the casually extended tail of the G in Underdog. He was there, first in line, by 6 p.m. on Friday night — a full 14 hours before the store opened.

(He was first last year too, arriving at a downright casual 8 p.m. then.)

“We had one heavy shower about 3 a.m. or so,” he said. “There were a couple of little showers throughout, but the umbrellas took care of that. It sounded nice, the rain hitting the tent.”

Underdog had gotten one copy of David Bowie’s Cracked Actor, a never-before released recording of a concert from 1974. Only 5,000 of the triple LP sets were available, scattered throughout the country like cocaine-addled endangered animals. That was one of the things I wanted the most. Unfortunately, Stillwagoner wanted it too.

“Bob comes in every single week, like clockwork. He’s hardcore,” Underdog owner Jonathan Hodges said. “He actually discovered the store on Record Store Day two years ago. He came and stood in line a little farther back, and he’s been a regular ever since.”

Record Store Day is an event that caters to a wide range of collectors, from the diehard overnight campers like Stillwagoner to those who stop in mid-afternoon to pick up the more readily available releases, to otherwise well adjusted adults who admit that they’ve been in line for hours to get a 12-inch picture disc of Toto’s “Africa” that is shaped like, um, the continent of Africa. (Hurry boy, she’s waiting there for you. Assuming you were here by 6 a.m.)

It’s also a ridiculously important day for independent record stores, and this year marked the 10th anniversary of its seemingly underwhelming debut. The first year, 100 stores participated with a handful of new releases from Death Cab for Cutie, Vampire Weekend and four other bands your sophomore-year boyfriend loved. The next year, that number had grown to 85 releases.

Now, a decade later, an estimated 1,400 stores in the United States — and almost 3,000 worldwide — were hashtag-RSD17-ing, and there were more than 300 exclusive album titles available.

“While I’m hesitant to take all the credit and say,

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